


Time Won't Care

by peterickster (enochiancass)



Category: Criminal Minds, Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Eventual Canon Divergence, M/M, Slow Burn, emotional angst, minor homophobia, prison!reid
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-20 22:12:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11930349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enochiancass/pseuds/peterickster
Summary: Basically its season 12 and forward except Spencer and Luke are gay and slowly falling in love





	1. The Crimson King

**Author's Note:**

> So ! I aim for this to be relatively long but I'm going to try harder than I ever have before to update regularly. It probably will be mostly canon until the season 12 finale where I'll just start making shit up. Enjoy!
> 
> disclaimer: I do not own any characters or the episode plot arcs. some dialogue is taken from the show.

Spencer sighed as he stared at the clock. One-twenty in the morning. Aside from him, the bullpen sat empty, and the only light was the single lamp on his desk. He had finished up the files stacked up in his inbox basket a while ago, and instead of going home had found something else to do. Upon observing his coworkers’ inbox baskets and their stacked files at varying levels of precariousness, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work. It wasn’t as if paperwork was Spencer’s chosen method to pass the time, but it was an effective distraction. He knew if he went home and tried to sleep he would end up staring at the ceiling until his alarm went off, so he had decided to spend the night more productively. The BAU was welcoming a new agent later that morning, as Rossi had informed them that night, and although he understood it was a logically sound decision, he couldn’t help but take it like a punch to the gut. It seemed as though Morgan’s desk had been vacated a mere week before Hotch had gone looking to replace him, though he knew it had been significantly longer than that. Regardless of the time that had passed since the prison break and Morgan’s resignation, Spencer’s emotions were as raw as though it was yesterday; he just couldn’t get over the fact another person had left him.

He shook his head. No, he thought, Derek didn’t leave you, you’re the one avoiding his calls. He rubbed at his eyes and sat back. No, not avoiding, he reasoned, I’m just putting them off until I know what to say, how to talk to him. Even as he thought it he knew he was making excuses for himself. Derek wouldn’t care if Spencer had nothing of substance to say, it was Spencer who was scared of their relationship becoming superficial. Until all they ever heard from each other was Christmas cards and birthday phone-calls.

In attempt to banish the current avenue of thought from his head, he ventured into the break room for his tenth cup of coffee since the last of his co-workers, Garcia, had left to go home last night. If anyone came close to being as upset about the new team member as Spencer was, it was Garcia. Unlike Spencer though, Penelope did not have a predisposition towards insomnia and so she went home at a relatively reasonable time. He cringed when he remembered his promise to her that he would go home before too long. Oh well, he was sure she would forgive him.  
When the new pot of coffee was finally done brewing, he poured himself a cup and doused it in sugar, impatiently waiting for it to cool down enough to be safely consumed. After two minutes and seventeen seconds of reciting to himself the numerals of pi, his patience ran out and he downed the cup of still nearly-scalding coffee. He made himself another one, tongue now slightly burned, and carried it with him back to his desk. The expedition to the break room had worked to allow him to return his focus to the paperwork, and he sat there scribbling for the next few hours. By the time the sun had risen enough to light up the room, Spencer had finished his, Lewis’, and JJ’s stacks of paperwork, and had even ventured into Rossi’s office to complete the few files left in there. Now left with nothing to do for the hour that remained until people would start showing up, he ventured aimlessly around the building, cataloguing each vending machine and what they were stocked with, for no reason other than to have something to do. He made it back to his desk twenty-seven minutes and thirty-four seconds later, now with uselessly intimate knowledge of the building’s snacking apportionment. With an estimated thirty-two minutes until his coworkers’ arrivals, he had nothing left to do but to think through the possible outcomes of the new teammate’s arrival. What if he doesn’t mesh well with the team’s dynamic? What if he does mesh well and I develop a fondness for him and he decides the BAU is not for him? What if I develop a fondness for him and he gets killed? He couldn’t help but to allow his hypothetics to explore the worst case-scenarios, he had learned to be prepared for the worst long ago. He was a self-described realist, and he knew that there was just as big a chance that the new agent joining the team would produce favorable outcomes, Hotch would not have brought him on otherwise. On the other hand, Spencer knew he was not the best at dealing with his emotions, and his pent-up feelings of loss often manifested as pessimistic cynicism.

He was broken from his train of thought at the sound of his phone ringing. He answered upon seeing Hotch’s name flash across the screen.

“Good morning, Sir,” He greeted, trying not to let his anxiety show through his voice.

“Reid,” Hotch returned, “I’ve sent over some files pertaining to Daniel Cullen, I want you to look them over and see how they line up with the crimes from three years ago. Lewis and I are in Phoenix, but the rest of the team should be there in the next ten minutes wherein I’ll have Garcia set up a conference call.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Thank you,” Hotch said, hesitating slightly before asking “and, Reid?”

“Yeah?”

“Please give Agent Alvez a chance. We both know he’ll already be having a hard enough time with Garcia, and he really is an asset to this team.”

Spencer grimaced, “I’ll take that into consideration, Sir.”

“Thank you, Reid. I’ll talk to you soon,” he said before disconnecting.

Spencer sighed before making his way to the fax machine where a stack of photos and a medical report sat. The files from three years ago were already in the conference room, as Rossi had been looking them over the night before.  
He placed his phone into his pocket as he headed to the conference room and over to the table to examine the files. There was now an approximate eight minutes and seventeen seconds before his teammates would arrive which gave him enough time to read over the files atleast five times. He began with Cullen’s arrest record and stopped abruptly when he saw Agent Alvez’ name. Alvez caught this guy? He thought to himself. He had to admit it was a moderately impressive arrest, and he couldn’t help but wonder how the agent had gone about it. Suddenly he really wanted to have a conversation with his new teammate, if only to get a better understanding of the case. Admittedly, Hotch had also had a point in that Agent Alvez was not deserving of any hostility he may receive for being perceived as Morgan’s replacement. He figured it was the least he could do to try to keep an open mind, although that did not change the anxiety still pooling in his gut.

“Hey,” Spencer barely kept himself from jumping as he turned around to greet the unfamiliar voice.

“Luke. Alvez,” clarified the voice, which Spencer could now see belonged to a strikingly attractive face, an observation that certainly did nothing to alleviate his anxiety, but at most redirected it.

“Oh, hi,” he replied, “I’m Doctor Spencer Reid.”

“Ah,” Luke says in recognition, “No handshaking, right? Your, uh, reputation precedes you.”

“So does yours,” Spencer replies with a small smile, recalling what he had read in the file, “It says here that you caught our next fugitive, Daniel Cullen, three years ago.” Spencer’s eyebrows screwed up in thoughtfulness. “During his sentencing statement he said, ‘I don’t kill because I don’t have to,’ he sounds like an injustice collector.” He restrained himself from rambling too much and instead asked the question that had piqued his interest the most upon reading the files, “How’d you finally catch him?”

“Cullen was always a suspect, we just couldn’t get n I.D. So, uh, my partner went deep cover and,” Alvez hesitated slightly, “we caught him in the act.”

Spencer noted the other agents shift in demeanor at the mention of his partner but didn’t broach the subject, instead raising his eyebrows to encourage the other man to continue.

“After I heard how he broke out in May, I wanted to be the one to put him away again.”

“There might be a flag on that play,” came Rossi’s voice from behind Spencer, where he and JJ had just entered the room. He found himself extremely grateful for the timing of the older agent’s arrival, as he couldn’t stop his brain from comparing Alvez to Morgan just now, at which he noticed a definite similarity that he definitely did not want to analyze at the moment.

Rossi pressed the connect button on the intercom, “Go ahead, Hotch,” he said, “we’re all here.”  
Hotch and Lewis began filling them in on what appeared to be Cullen’s latest victim, and the team discussed any details that didn’t quite fit. Most notably, the hesitation marks on the cuts, as well as why Cullen would be calling out the BAU in the first place. In the end, everyone seemed to agree with Spencer’s realization that they must be working with a high-functioning copycat. Hotch left them with instructions to further investigate any discrepancies while He and Lewis interviewed the latest victim.

As Spencer collected his files and returned to his desk to continue looking them over, he allowed himself to think about Agent Alvez. The way he had decided to stick with the investigation even after finding out they were after a completely new fugitive was certainly admirable. He considered the implications that he had the choice to leave though, and whether he had been hired for one case only. Rossi hadn’t specified how long Alvez would be working with them and Spencer had just assumed he was to be a permanent member. After meeting the man, Spencer admittedly would be slightly disappointed to see him go at the end of this case. He decided to bring it up with Rossi when he had the chance and focused his mind on the files. He had a criminal to catch.


	2. The Crimson King Pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, these chapters have been pretty short so far, which is sort of necessary with my current schedule if I want to continue updating regularly. If you want longer chapters with more waiting time in between posts, comment below, or if you want me to keep doing shorter chapters comment that too.
> 
> Also! These first couple chapters are going to have a decent amount of scenes that are in the actual episodes but pretty soon I'm going to start writing more of what I see happening between each scene, when the cameras are off~~
> 
> Anyways,, enjoy chapter 2!! if youre liking it, plese leave kudos, comments, etc <333

“Bubblegum? For real?” Luke asked in interest and disbelief. The team was sitting together on the jet, on their way to meet up with Hotch and Lewis in Tempe, Arizona. They had just gotten off the phone with Lewis who had said the victim described being drugged with a gas that smelled like bubblegum.

“We’ve seen the use of aerosolized drugs before,” Spencer replied, making wide gestures with his hands, “One called scopolamine puts you in a catatonic state while the other, sevoflurane, is used during dental surgery. It puts you in a suggestible, almost hypnotic trance,” He finished, waving his fingers.

Luke was almost disappointed when JJ continued instead of Doctor Reid. In the hours he had known him, he had grown to enjoy listening to him talk. He had an air of confidence he didn’t have otherwise when he was going off on one of his speeches. It wasn’t arrogant in any way, just an apparent excitement to share information he found interesting. It was almost endearing.  
  
Agent Rossi was the next one to chime into the conversation, introducing a photo of their newest suspect.  
  
“Mr. Scratch,” Luke said in recognition, “Peter Lewis. He was one of the key players in the breakout.”  
  
“Looks like you get to hunt a fugitive after all,” Rossi Joked, “Just not the one you thought.”  
  
Luke allowed all the facts to tumble around in his head, everything not quite coming together. “But I’m bumping on two things,” he started, “Number one: Peter Lewis should be doing everything he can to stay hidden, and number two: if he’s going to surface again, why would he copy another guys style?”  
  
Spencer nodded his head in assent, most likely he had been wondering the same things, “He obviously has some agenda that’s not clear to us yet,” he said, “But we need to consider a more pressing problem. Peter Lewis is a math genius, which means he plans for every variable.”  
  
The team looked toward Spencer, interested in what he was thinking (Something Luke was starting to realize was a pretty common occurrence.) “Why is that more pressing?” Rossi ventured, “Every serial killer thinks that.”  
  
“Yeah, but most of them operate out of compulsion and he doesn’t. He would stress test all permutations of his plan before reappearing, most likely on other victims.”  
  
“You think we’re missing someone,” JJ gathered.  
  
“He wouldn’t release Brian unless he knew we couldn’t catch him,” Spencer reasoned.  
  
Everyone seemed convinced by his logic, and it was at that moment Rossi seemed to get a call on his tablet from Garcia. Now that they had their tech geek extraordinaire on the line, it was easy to check Spencer’s theory of other victims. They had Garcia look into any reports of strange crimes in the Tempe area. When nothing turned up, she went out on a limb and searched through reports of prank calls, and that’s when she found it.  
  
“I’ve got a call here about a Jennifer Jareau,” she said, “That caller listed the address as 54321 Rossi Avenue.”  
  
“Wow this guy is really baiting us, isn’t he?” Rossi asked, and Luke couldn’t help but feel like that was an understatement.  
  
Rossi instructed Garcia to send the location that the call was made from to Hotch and Lewis so they could go and check it out. As Garcia was saying her goodbyes before hanging up, Luke’s phone began to ring, and when he saw it was his mother he quickly stood up and moved to the back of the jet to answer it.  
  
“Hey, Ma,” he answered, “What’s up?”  
  
“Hey, Sweetie,” his mother greeted, “Your father’s birthday is coming up in a couple days and we both just wanted to know if we should expect you home at all.”  
He sighed at the discernable passive aggression in his mother’s voice. He had never quite been able to live up to his mother’s more… conservative expectations of him. Though she had never expressly disapproved of who he was, he had gotten used to the little ways his mom would let him know what she really thought.  
  
He sighed, “Ma, you know I would…”  
  
“I know, sweetie, your job is important to you,” she chuckled a bit to herself, “It seems sometimes your job and nothing else.”  
  
“Look, I’ll try my best okay? You’ve seen the news, Ma. Eight serial killers we’ve got left to catch.”  
  
“I know, Luke.” She sighed, “At least make sure you give him a call.”  
  
“I will, Ma,” He looked over his shoulder when he heard someone clear their throat and saw Spencer standing awkwardly in the doorway.  
“I gotta go, Ma,” he said quickly into his phone before hanging up and turning towards Spencer, “What’s up?”  
  
“Rossi sent me to tell you we’ll be landing soon and we’re going to go over the profile one last time before we do, just to make sure we’re as prepared as possible.”  
  
Luke nodded and gestured with his hand toward where the rest of the team was still gathered at the table, “Lead the way, boy genius.”  
  
The corners of Luke’s mouth turned up when he noticed the slight pinkening of the doctor’s cheeks as he followed him down the aisle. It seemed bizarre to him how greatly Spencer could improve his mood by just existing when he’d only met the man a matter of hours before. Part of him hoped it was more an intellectual appreciation than a romantic interest as he was well aware of the complexities of office romances. Not that that was even a possibility, considering he had no idea whether Spencer even played for his team.   
  
It wasn’t long before they had landed and were on their way to the Tempe Police Department in two separate black SUVs provided by the Phoenix FBI Field Office. By the time they arrived, Hotch and Lewis had already returned from the address of the prank call and had brought with them a break in Peter Lewis’ M.O. The working theory is that he seeks out individuals with dissociative identity disorder because they are more susceptible to the effects of scopolamine.   
“That means Peter Lewis is not the copycat,” JJ said, “its someone that he dosed.”  
  
“Peter Lewis never liked to kill,” Rossi added on, “He always got others to do his dirty work for him.”  
  
They continued to discuss the implications of what it would entail for Peter Lewis to be able to keep a DID patient dissociated. It was apparent that it affected the victims differently but one thing stuck out in Luke’s mind.   
“It begs the question,” he vocalized, “why didn’t Brian go crazy?”  
  
The team considered this, and decided they would discuss it further after sending someone to interview Brian, in order to gather some more information on any possible links between the victims. Tara volunteered to go, as she already had a rapport with Brian built up from her first interview with him.   
  
The rest of the team split up to go over various files, looking for anything they may have missed, any connections they had failed to make. The only thing Luke found was himself becoming enraged. Of all the fugitives, he had helped put away, nothing disturbed him more than the complete disregard for others that some of them showed. Peter Lewis seemed to take that to a whole new level. Not only harming them physically, but messing with their minds, potentially altering who they are for the rest of their life. He’d never understand how people could be so cruel. Especially when he had seen Hotch’s name among Peter Lewis’ victims, he had never felt so fueled to catch a fugitive, saving maybe Daniel Cullen. He felt the same furious indignation he always did when he thought about what happened to his partner. That had been the only time he had ever considered leaving the Bureau. The family stress on top of the work stress had made him reconsider his confidence in the fact that this was the right career field for him. Of course then he had remembered if he left the Bureau, he’d never get to watch with satisfaction as that smug grin is wiped off another fugitive. Another Cullen who never gets to hurt anyone again. That is, until the most psychopathic criminal you’ve ever encountered stages a prison break and sets them all free, making the work you’ve done feel in vain.  
  
Feeling the sudden need to vent, he looked around for a member of his team, and when he saw Hotch he got up and wandered over to his boss, slightly unsure. He was an extremely new addition to this team and while he felt welcome, he hadn’t had time to observe how each member reacted in various situations. He just really wanted to know the rest of the team was as affected by this as he was, that he wasn’t on the verge of snapping under the pressure, and if anyone could relate to his Peter Lewis-induced stress he supposed it would be Aaron Hotchner.  
  
“Alvez, what’s up?” Hotch asked when he looked up to find Luke standing in front of him.   
  
“Can we talk?” He asked.  
  
Hotch’s face grew curious and slightly worried, though he just nodded and gestured to an office in the corner of the room. “We can go in there,” he said.  
Luke nodded and followed his boss into the office, closing the door behind him and turning to Hotch who was now leaning against the desk.   
  
“So I’m up to speed on all the fugitives this team is hunting,” he started, with slight hesitation, “which means I read up on all of Peter Lewis’ victims.” He checked Hotch’s face for any signs of aggression and when he saw there were none, he continued. “And I, uh, saw that-“  
  
“I was one of them,” his new boss finished for him.   
  
“Yeah,” he confirmed, before clarifying, “I don’t want to know what happened; I just want to know…”  
What did he want to know? That Hotch share his feelings, he supposed. That he wasn’t alone. The thing is he didn’t quite know how he felt, other than really wanting justice; vindication, if by any means necessary. It scared him how surely he wanted to make sure he was there to witness Daniel Cullen’s fate. He could only imagine how Hotch felt about Mr. Scratch.   
“Don’t you want to kill him?” he finished.  
  
Hotch had an intense thoughtfulness about him. “Do you want to kill Daniel Cullen?” he returned.  
  
“I took an oath to uphold the laws of this country. So…” he exhaled a large sigh, “Yeah. Yeah, I want to kill him.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“You read my personnel file.” He said back. The day he caught Daniel Cullen wasn’t really a day he enjoyed thinking about, much less talking about.  
  
“I want to hear your version.”  
  
“Ok. All Right...” he searched for words to put his feelings into, “Anyone that asks, I tell them we caught him in the act.. which is the truth. What I don’t tell them is that the act that I caught him in was him cutting open my partner, who he somehow figured out was FBI,” he could feel the anger from that day resurfacing as he remembered the absolute coldness in Cullen’s eyes after what he had done to his partner, to so many other people. “‘Try not to flinch.’ Phil told me later that’s what he said.” He recalled.  
  
“I strongly believe that men like Daniel Cullen and Peter Lewis belong in 5-foot by 8-foot cells where they can live out their lives as failures, instead of dying thinking that they accomplished something.” Hotch said, the same ever-present seriousness on his face. Though, beneath it Luke saw what could pass as understanding, and he knew that was probably as good as he was going to get.  
  
“Im not there yet.”  
  
“Let’s talk about right now,” he said, “I wanted you on this case because I know that you’re driven to find Cullen, and I know that you’re a good tracker. If there’s something in this profile that you’re not agreeing with, I’d like to know what it is.”  
  
He recognized this as Hotch’s way of telling him to get back to work; they really did have a lot to get done. He promised himself he’d find some way to finish venting later, because he really did have a small problem with the profile. “You’re not gonna like it.”  
  
“Then everybody should hear it,” Hotch said with finality, standing up and leaving the room. Luke was experiencing slight whiplash from going so quickly between his work mindset and allowing himself to be vulnerable and back again, but he stood up to follow. Emotional stress could wait, he had a criminal to catch.


End file.
